Kamen Rider Spirits Chapter 26: Demon
Synopsis Plot The chapter begins on a flashback of Rumi when she was a little girl. She had arrived home from school only to see her father being strangled by ZX. ZX slowly turned his head and sees Rumi as Dr. Ichijo struggled to breathe in his grip. A frightened Rumi screams and calls out to her father. In the present, Rumi is still searching for Ryo Murasame around Tokyo with some of the patients of the clinic offering to help search. Dr. Kaido is chasing after her, not wanting Rumi to see Ryo in his transformed state. Back at the Temple, Needle and Ryo are in shock seeing that Eisuke is alive. Eisuke removes his sunglasses to reveal he has a cybernetic eye with a laser sight, locking it on Ryo's forehead. Needle is outraged, as he wants to be the one to finish ZX off. Eisuke partially changes into his new and improved Tigeroid body, deploying a cannon from his left shoulder and opening fire on Ryo with Needle close enough to be in the blast radius. Both of them jump and change into their non-human forms, but the bystanders surrounding Eisuke weren't so lucky and are all badly burned, screaming in pain. Eisuke warns Needle to stay out of his way as destroying ZX is his assignment, before taking his leave, simply getting his point across to Needle. Lee witnesses Eisuke's attack and is terrified by the man when he leers at him. ZX and Needle resume their fight, tussling with each other in the air as they hurtle across the city streets. They pass by Rumi, who sees ZX and Ryo notices her as well, with Rumi in shock. The two combatants then slam into a glass window through an office building, then plummet down hard through the street with the aid of ZX's Boot Jets. ZX and Needle exchange blows in an underground shopping complex, with ZX managing to damage Needle's face with a flurry of punches. Needle tries to retreat by leaping out of the hole in the road, but gets hit by a flurry of Cross Shurikens, with one piercing his eye. Furious, Needle curses ZX and wildly lunges at him in mid-air and the two continue to scuffle. Rumi is paralyzed by a PTSD panic attack, triggered by seeing ZX as the people from the clinic wonder why two operatives of Badan they saw on TV are fighting each other. Dr. Kaido silently frowns as he realizes he is too late. Needle kicks ZX to the ground, with ZX skidding towards Rumi. The clinic patients then hurl cans and trash at ZX and quickly get Rumi to safety, telling ZX to go away. This distraction leaves ZX open to attack and Needle bombards ZX with his quills. Rather than dodge the attack and let the quills hit Rumi and her friends, ZX stretches his arms outward and uses his body as a shield to block all of the quills from hitting them. This badly damages ZX, but saves Rumi from danger. The patients are amazed that they were saved by someone from Badan and wonder why the stranger did it. Needle collapses from his multiple injuries and loss of blood, unable to even stand. Suddenly, an odd sound rings out through the night sky and everyone who hears it looks up. In the Pacific Ocean, the large meteorite creature emerges from the sea and makes a terrifying roar. The moon in the sky then has a face of a skull appear on it, lights in the sky appear and strange symbols emerge from the light which form a magic circle. The circle then turns into a black hole-like vortex that begins sucking up people in the city. Rumi almost gets sucked in, but her friends grab onto her and she grabs onto a street lamp. Eisuke observes this and notes that this is the "second wave", soon the "insects" (humans) will be converted into energy for Badan by being sacrificed to the void. ZX overhears this and begins to glow, with the quills burning off of him and his body regenerating. Ryo is determined not to lose anyone else he cares about or let anyone be taken away like he was and the glow changes into a burst aura of energy. Rumi then figures out that ZX is Ryo Murasame, much to Dr. Kaido's sadness. Determined to stop Badan, ZX flies with his Boot Jets and charges at the vortex, with hundreds of helpless people hurtling toward it behind him. Characters Allies *Rumi Ichijō *Dr. Hajime Kaido Enemies *Needle *Eisuke Mikage Category:Kamen Rider Spirits Chapters